Stuck Compass

[J. Dillon]

Have a "hockey puck" style hand bearing compass made in France. It's filled with Tritium gas. The card is stuck and will not swing. Tried running a magnet around the circumfrence to free it. The card follows it but will not seek north on it's own.

Any ideas on how to permanently free it up ?

JD

[Thaddeus J. Van Gilder]

tritium???
as in Hydrogen with an atomic mass of three???
why on Earth would they use something as hard to get as tritium in a compass?

[chesterm]

If you need your compass for more than passing amusement, replace it or be really sure it's repaired properly. That is, if you rely on your compass for genuine navigation, it could stick again sometime after you free it and you wouldn't know until you heard water dashing on rocks at night, where rocks shouldn't be. That would really raise hell with your antifouling paint.

[Ed Harrow]

Perhaps as part of a conspiracy. Get enough of them in one place and maybe you'll reach critical mass. Of course it could be simply because it's French...

Sounds to me like it took a hit - send it to the Taliban, it will work good enough for them, LOL

[Ian McColgin]

Take it out of the rubber and see if it has a dip problem. You'd expect that in the Pacific Northwest, but some of the french compasses that get over here are balanced to work in Europe, not North America.

The vendor should replace it with a compass properly balanced for the area. If you got it through wastemarine, you may have to be a bit insistant.

The tritium is a lovely light . . .

G'luck

[videoguy]

I have a colection of compasses and all of mine are filled with gin.It works very well and can warm you up on a cold night .As long as your not lost.